Yes, People Are Dying. But the President’s TV Ratings Are Up!

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On Saturday, President Trump suggested he was considering a complete quarantine of New York State before backing down a few hours later.Getty Images

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump has been a disturbingly erratic figure, one who began by dismissing the danger outright, then continually lying about the preparedness of the country to meet this medical crisis as the infections rose and deaths mounted. Even as governors around the country complained about the lack of resources and pleaded for the federal government to come to their aid, the president and his top advisers continued to claim that everything was perfectly under control.

As recently as March 7, when asked by a reporter if he was worried about the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, Trump responded: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.” A few days later, he doubled down on that optimistic assessment: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

And as many people around the country found it impossible to be tested for the coronavirus, even those displaying clear symptoms of COVID-19, the president stated flatly: “Anybody that needs a test gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.”

It’s a performance that has stunned most medical professionals and many former government officials who have served in previous administrations during times of similar crisis. “The U.S. response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort,” said Ron Klain, who served under President Obama as the leader of a task force responding to the Ebola crisis in 2014 and 2015, at a Georgetown University panel recently. “What’s happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions.” (As of Sunday, there have been 135,000 confirmed cases reported in the United States and 2,730 deaths.)

But this weekend was one in which the president really seemed to go off the rails.

It began late Saturday afternoon with a casual comment to reporters as he left the White House, holding an umbrella to shield himself from light rain. He said that he was considering a total quarantine of the New York area, barring people from that state (as well as “probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut”), from traveling to any other part of the country. He particularly singled out Florida, which the president recently claimed as his legal residence. “They’re having problems down in Florida,” he said. “A lot of New Yorkers are going down. We don’t want that.”

The response from government officials, most of whom were taken by surprise by Trump’s statement, was swift. New York governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN, “I don’t even know what that means,” adding that the president hadn’t mentioned the quarantine when the two had talked earlier in the day; Cuomo later called it “a declaration of war on states.”

A few hours later, the president backed down, announcing on Twitter that the massive quarantine was not needed after all.

On Sunday, however, things got even stranger. Trump went on a Twitter spree, quoting from a New York Times story last week about large audiences watching his coronavirus briefings (even though previously he said he no longer reads “the failing New York Times.”) “‘President Trump is a ratings hit,’” began his first tweet. “Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...”

Then this: “...On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, according to Nielsen—‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC, and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News...”

And this: “..alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing—an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom...”

For some people, Trump finally seemed to go too far.

“Trump’s own words prove why networks need to cut away from his press conferences,” tweeted Gabriel Sherman, special correspondent for Vanity Fair. “He’s using a global pandemic to get free airtime to hold a campaign rally. He brags about ‘ratings,’ not whether he’s giving public valuable health info.”

Jon Favreau, a former aide to Barack Obama, was even more scathing: “He is a monster like none we’ve seen in American politics,” he tweeted. “And if you see that, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do or what your political leanings are: The only thing to do now is whatever it takes to defeat him in November. We can argue about everything else later.”

In a follow-up tweet, Favreau added: “I’ve obviously never been a fan, but I’ve never been more enraged than watching this self-absorbed sociopath tweet about his television ratings as the people he governs are suffering, dying, and crying out for help.”

At Sunday evening’s White House press briefing, during which the president denied threatening to quarantine New York (“I said we’re going to look at it....I didn’t threaten it”), he was asked about his ratings by a reporter from OAN. “Mr. President, your approval ratings have been the highest they have ever been, as well as your ratings on the handling of the virus,” Jenn Pellegrino said. “Yet there are some networks saying they are debating whether or not to carry these briefings live. Do you think there is a link between the two?”

The president paused before answering, smiled, and said, “Why, that’s a nice question.”

He added: “I don’t want approval ratings from this. I wish we could have our old life back. We had the greatest economy that we’ve ever had, and we didn’t have death. We didn’t have this horrible scourge, this plague, call it whatever you want: the virus. But we’re working very hard, that’s all I know. I see things, I see numbers, they don’t matter to me. What matters to me is that we have a victory over this thing as soon as possible.”

But things quickly turned more contentious when PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor (a former reporter for the New York Times) asked about a comment Trump had made on Sean Hannity’s show on Thursday night saying that he didn’t think some governors would need the equipment they have been requesting.

“Why don’t you people act...why don’t you act a little more positive?” Trump responded. “It’s always getcha, getcha, getcha.… That’s why you used to work for the Times and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something: Be nice. Don’t be threatening. Be nice.”

Then he added, about the claim that the governors were overstating their needs: “I never said that.”

“I am quoting you directly from your interview with Sean Hannity,” Alcindor replied.

When she tried to ask a second question, Trump cut her off, saying, “That’s enough,” and a White House aide forcibly took the microphones from her hand. Later, when CNN’s Jeremy Diamond was called on, he yielded to Alcindor, whom Trump then allowed to ask a follow-up question.

Diamond eventually got a chance to ask his own question, also about the White House’s contentious relationship with some of the country’s governors (particularly Washington’s Jay Inslee). But Trump cut him off as well, turning to another reporter and then turning back to Diamond, calling CNN “fake news—yes they are.”

Expect a tweet soon.